Craig Kelly (Hughes, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

There is clearly not informed consent, and that is the reason why I have moved that amendment.

The other amendment I have moved in this series of amendments is about the functions of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee, to include after section 101(4F):

(4G) The Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee must:

(a) review recommendations made by the Advisory Committee on Medicines Scheduling in relation to new restrictions on prescribing previously approved drugs for off-label use …

Why is this needed? We have had this advisory committee on medicines deciding they would ban ivermectin in this country. Who reviews this decision? Who questions them? We have experts in this country—men like Professor Thomas Borody, with more letters after his name than the alphabet, and Emeritus Professor Robert Clancy—who not only have been using these treatments on Australians but have documented and shown that they are saving lives. They have documented and shown that they are keeping Australians out of hospital. Yet an unelected group of unaccountable faceless bureaucrats, many of them not even medical people, have come forward and told those two medical geniuses, who are among the highest qualified people in this country, that they cannot use a treatment that they have demonstrated will save lives. There clearly needs to be more oversight of these groups because they are not doing their job as the Australian public would want them to.

The other amendment is to section 132, which relates to the provision of COVID vaccines and treatments. It calls for the minister, before engaging in any conduct that would restrict any medical practitioners, such as Professor Borody and the 30 doctors he had working underneath him, to engage in some consultation. Has the minister sat down with Professor Borody to go through the results of his trials? There have been 600 patients and zero deaths. We know that in an equivalent group of 600 Australians who had COVID there would normally be seven deaths. There should be in the legislation a requirement for the minister and the department to consult with these medical doctors, who are saving lives, before they pull the rug from underneath them.

These are sensible amendments to this bill. They enhance the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme to talk simply about more oversight and more consultation and to make sure that the concepts of free and informed choice and consent are enshrined in law. I would hope that every single member of this House supports the amendments.

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